


shame on a billboard

by shatteredhourglass



Series: Musicians!AU [6]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Bucky Barnes is a hopeless romantic, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Deaf Clint Barton, Dramatic bullshit, Getting Back Together, M/M, Musician Bucky Barnes, Musician Clint Barton, Musicians, POV Clint Barton, idiot romcom shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23700544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteredhourglass/pseuds/shatteredhourglass
Summary: Thing is, Clint knows he’s being stupid. People lie all the time. It’s not like it’s an uncommon thing, and it certainly isn’t a good reason to fuck off and leave his job as an international superstar to rot on his couch for an undetermined amount of time.Except he’s not really a superstar, is he? That’s Natasha.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: Musicians!AU [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1427029
Comments: 129
Kudos: 348
Collections: Winterhawk Bingo





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's here!

“Come on,” Kate says. “It’s two-thirty in the afternoon, get up.”

Clint stares at the television. He’s been watching reruns of British comedy shows for the last thirty hours and _The Mighty Boosh_ doesn’t make any more sense now than it had at the start. Clint thinks it might be growing on him though. (Not in a good way. More like a mould.)

Kate moves so she’s standing directly in the way of the screen to block him.

Clint pulls the blanket over his head instead.

“I hate celebrities,” Kate mutters. “Worse than the kids in my store who keep stealing picks.”

A second later the blanket is tugged off his head and throw down by his feet so he can’t grab it easily again. A weight settles down on his shins as Kate sits on him - there’s nowhere else to sit, really, he’s tall enough to take up the entire length of the couch. Clint lets out a heavy sigh and looks back at the television.

He can see Kate looking at him from the corner of his eye. “Have you changed your clothes in the last week?”

“Nope. Maybe I should get a more dramatic look for the next album,” Clint says absently. He hasn’t looked in a mirror. He doesn’t _want_ to look in a mirror. He’s quite happy just rotting away on this couch for the rest of his life, thank you. “You think I could pull off green body paint and a tutu?”

Kate frowns and glances back at the tv. When she looks away from the chaos happening onscreen, she’s wearing a grimace instead. “This is awful. Even for you. What the hell happened on tour?”

Clint reaches past her to grab the blanket. Once it’s over his head he sighs at the blessed darkness. His eyes feel all dried out and achy. (It’s either the lack of sleep or the sporadic crying, and he’s choosing to believe it’s the former.)

Kate yanks the blanket off of him again. "Come on, Clint. It's been three weeks. Either you tell me who pissed in your cereal or I leave, and I’m taking the dog with me."

"Fine." He sits up. For a minute it won’t come out, and all he can hear is the echo of their voices, the _lying_. Fuck, he’s stupid. "I caught Bucky and Nat together."

"Okay? It’s nice they’re friends. Wouldn’t want to be the one to get the shovel talk from her, but I don’t see a problem here." 

"No," Clint grits out. "I caught them _together_."

Kate lets out a burst of laughter. Clint just stares at her, feels every sleepless night tugging at him painfully. Does he look as dead as he feels? She stops when she sees the expression he's making. "Wait- you're not joking? You _actually_ think Natasha and Bucky would- ? Hang on."

She stands up and walks over to where she’s left her handbag, rummaging around until she finds her phone. Clint watches her vaguely, wondering when everything started getting all blurry. Probably after the first forty-eight hours of sleeplessness.

Kate starts wandering away and Clint tries to get his aching legs to move, manages to get them under him as Kate mutters something about _idiots_ and _communication_.

She walks out into the corridor, still tapping rapidly on her phone. She’s distracted, so it’s easy enough to close the door behind her and lock it, and he pulls his hearing aids out of his ears and throws them aside. From there it’s easy to fall back onto the couch and go back to staring blankly at the screen in front of him, the silence far comforting than the memories crowding at him.

Thing is, Clint knows he’s being stupid. People cheat all the time. It’s not like it’s an uncommon thing, and it certainly isn’t a good reason to fuck off and leave his job as an international superstar to rot on his couch for an undetermined amount of time.

Except he’s not really a superstar, is he? That’s Natasha.

That’s a problem too. He hadn’t gone into this worrying about whether he’d be popular or not.

The most important thing had been _playing_ the music, hearing it vibrate under his boots as the crowd screamed for them. It had been about yanking all the dark twisted things out of himself and sinking them into chords and drumbeats until it stopped bothering him so much. It was about making something out of the disaster that was his childhood and making something _good_.

He plucks at the battered old bass in his hands, can’t hear the sound that it makes even as his fingers move over the strings. It’s the first one he’d bought with his own money, scrimping and saving every penny until he had held it in bandaged fingers, waving it excitedly at Natasha

Clint still loves the music.

He just doesn’t know where to go from here.

Clint drops the guitar onto the carpet and Lucky jumps into his lap instead, licking insistently at his cheeks.

“It’d be nice if something went right for once,” Clint informs him.

Lucky licks him again.

Clint’s hurting. But mostly, he just misses them.

Kate picks the lock the next morning.

“That’s not polite,” Clint says.

“I’m not polite,” Kate replies. “Not when I’m surrounded by idiots who can’t even manage simple communication by themselves.”

She slaps a beaten-looking laptop on the counter in front of him, nearly upturning his bowl of Froot Loops with the amount of force she uses. Clint is startled enough that he doesn’t escape immediately - not that Kate would let him - and Kate clicks on a link to open up a Youtube video.

“The Winter Soldier? What-” Clint starts, but Kate smacks his shoulder.

“Just watch it. Please.”

Why she’s being so insistent about this, he doesn’t know, but Clint gets the feeling Kate’s not going to leave him alone until he watches the damn video. The buffering icon comes up and Kate swears under her breath, smacks the keyboard impatiently. The title says it’s a recent show by the Soldier - about a week ago, if his memory isn’t failing him.

Kate’s laptop finally finishes loading and the screen lights up with footage from an empty stage in Vegas that Clint’s pretty sure _he’s_ played before. The video’s clearly been done with a phone but it’s remarkably clear.

There’s a single chair in the middle of the stage and Clint frowns. Isn’t the Winter Soldier supposed to be more… _dramatic_ than this? He’d assumed there’d at least be _some_ fancy shit, given how often people like mentioning it to him. A single light turns on with a loud clack, focused on the chair, and the people around the stage erupt into whispers.

“ _Is it starting?_ ”

“ _Is this even the right place?_ ”

“ _I mean, they took our tickets at the door, so it’s gotta be. Maybe it’s an opening act?”_

_“He’s never had an opening act before.”_

A figure shifts in the shadows at the back of the stage and Clint squints at it, even as the crowd begins cheering.

The Winter Soldier steps into the light and he’s just as edgy as Clint had expected him to be. It’s tight black pants tucked into scuffed black shitkicker boots, black leather gloves and some kind of black leather top that looks more like a straitjacket than anything else. The mask and goggles just top it off - both black, of course.

Clint’s never seen the Winter Soldier perform before in his life, but as someone runs onstage to pass him a microphone he can’t help feeling like there’s something familiar about this guy. It’s in the way he’s standing, and the soft curls of brown hair that are escaping around all the black.

“Kate, I don’t…” he tries again, suddenly uncomfortable, and trails off when the Winter Soldier reaches up to remove the mask and goggles. He can’t remember what he was going to say. He’s not sure it matters, because whatever he was going to say is overshadowed by the Winter Soldier’s face.

It’s Bucky.

His (former) boyfriend is the _fucking_ Winter Soldier. Possibly one of the biggest solo musicians of the decade, won a million awards without a single press interview, and Clint had nearly drowned him in the ocean and then made out with him in the back of a cab.

Bucky looks pale and washed-out in the yellow light, and there’s dark shadows under his eyes that could be makeup or just a lack of sleep. The crowd’s gone dead silent. Clint doesn’t know much but he does know that the Winter Soldier never shows his face during a performance.

“ _Uh. Hi,_ ” Bucky says, and even from here it’s easy to see how stiffly he’s holding himself. He looks desperately uncomfortable but it’s clear he’s doing this of his own volition anyway. “ _I hate being up here. It’s fuckin’ horrible with you all staring me in the eyes.”_

There’s a ripple of laughter at that. Even Kate snorts a little and Clint wonders how familiar she is with Bucky - or the Winter Soldier, should he say.

“ _I get this is weird,”_ Bucky continues, shifting on his feet. “ _It’s weird from the stage too, trust me. But I’m trying something new and this is from me as me, not as the Winter Soldier.”_

“This isn’t much of a performance,” Clint says, but his words are barely audible. His eyes are fixed on Bucky’s tiny pixellated face on the screen. He wants to look away.

Kate ignores him.

“ _I fucked up,”_ Bucky says. _“I lied to someone I loved because I thought he’d leave me if he knew the truth, even though I knew it was wrong. And now he’s left anyway and I don’t think he’s coming back, so I’m going to do the only thing I know how to do and make music about it.”_

A tech hands him a guitar and Bucky fixes the microphone to a stand, adjusts it before he sits down on the chair.

A gentle, faintly haunting melody starts filtering through the laptop’s beaten speakers and the audience is dead silent, and Kate’s dead silent, and all Clint can hear beyond the music is his own heartbeat thumping through his ribs.

“So?” Kate says, once the screen has gone black again.

Clint swallows past the dryness in his throat. It feels like he’s been gargling sand all of a sudden, and he has to blink a few times to get his eyes to focus. The Youtube autoplay is trying to load a different Winter Soldier performance, something with green lights and that cold, impassive black mask.

The video he just watched has thousands of thumbs down. He sees the word _bullshit_ in the comments below, sees something about _sellout_ and _losing all the fun now that he’s shown his face and started playing shitty love songs_.

Bucky’s just effectively tanked half of his career, and for what?

"Clint."

“So it was just a one-night stand?”

“What- _no_ , for fuck’s sake. No one cheated on anyone. Dammit, Clint, after what you just watched? You honestly think he’d do anything that wasn’t with you?”

“I,” Clint says, stops. There’s a lump in his throat the size of Canada.

Kate’s got fire in her eyes. “He came into the shop ages ago, looking like someone was hunting him, and all he wanted was Hawkeye merch. He started complaining to _me_. It’s the first time someone’s ever done that.”

Kate _does_ have a speech prepared for fans who ask the wrong questions - the Hawkeye Principal, or whatever she’s calling it - and for people who also recognize Clint as Hawkeye first. Clint doesn’t know why she bothers other than that she gets bored being at the store by herself all the time. (He helps out when he’s not on tour, because Kate’s his favourite and it’s not like anyone notices him if he wears a beanie.)

“I gave him that box of shit I keep,” Kate says. “You know, all the old stuff you never got produced, the guitar lessons. That one cover that you keep trying to destroy copies of. He gave that one back to me.”

Clint’s not going to buy into this, but- “ _Why_?”

“He wouldn’t tell me,” she replies with a shrug. “But I asked him again a few months later and he said that he thought it was too personal for someone who’s just a fan to have.”

Huh, that’s.

“Please call him,” Kate says. “He loves you so much that it makes me physically nauseous.”

“Okay,” Clint answers. “You have to go out, though, I want privacy.”

“Fine,” Kate says.

Clint barricades the door with a chair and goes back to bed.

He takes the laptop with him.

Clint’s phone doesn’t work anymore (he wants to pretend it was on purpose, but really he just fumbled and dropped it in the toilet) so he doesn’t get any kind of warning. He’s just sitting down in the cockroach-infested takeaway place while he waits for his fish and chips, dressed in a ratty robe and sweatpants because no one cares here.

Of course, that’s when she appears.

They’ve been together for so long that Clint can identify Natasha from his peripherals without even looking, simply because his brain’s memorized the way she walks. So he’s not surprised when she sits down in the chair across from him, although he’s not expecting what he sees when he glances up at her.

“You look like shit,” he says.

“So do you,” she replies, lips lifting the barest inch. It’s not quite a smile.

Clint’s lying. She looks immaculate, as always. Her hair’s pulled back into a loose, elegant braid and her ‘casual’ hoodie has a designer label on it, so it probably costs more than Clint’s entire building. There’s something tired in her eyes, though.

Clint leans back in his chair. “What do you want, Nat?”

“That depends on what you’re willing to give me,” she says.

He regards her quietly. It’s inevitable that he’ll forgive her - they’ve been inseparable for too long for anything else - but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be earned. Clint’s soft, sure, but soft doesn’t mean total fucking doormat and Natasha’s seen him pull out of bad relationships before (Jessica had really been something.)

“You didn’t sleep with Bucky,” he says, just to be sure.

“I wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole,” Natasha answers, wrinkling her nose. “He’s greasy.”

“He is a little bit greasy,” Clint agrees. He realizes he’s smiling about Bucky again and squashes it into a more neutral expression.

Natasha’s watching him with a flare of intensity in the green of her eyes. Clint doesn’t know what she’s looking for and he’s half-hoping she doesn’t find it. Natasha _sees_ him, inside and out, and Clint’s not always ready to view the things that she does.

“It’s just that he’s secretly famous? That’s why you were yelling at him?”

“I didn’t agree with his decision to keep it from you,” Natasha says. She’s picking at her nails - a tell, one she’d trained out of years ago. This is making her uneasy.

“You didn’t tell me,” Clint says.

“It wasn’t my place,” Natasha answers. She breaks eye contact for a second, looks down at her own lap like there’s a valid excuse there. It takes her a second to look back at him and then she’s frowning, just a little. “I was hoping he’d say something earlier.”

“Kind of wished you’d said something anyway,” Clint says.

It makes sense, though. Free choice is something that’s important to Natasha. That, and she likes to pretend she’s impartial to everything around her. Of course she’d want Bucky to come out with it instead of telling Clint herself.

“Order for Barton,” the guy at the desk calls, slapping down a steaming package wrapped in paper.

Clint stands up.

Natasha doesn’t move.

“I’ve got an unopened bottle of wine,” Clint says once he’s got the package cradled in his arms. “And chips that’ll probably give you liver failure. You in?”

She smiles properly this time.

“Does this mean you’re bringing me back on tour?”

“I don’t bring you anywhere,” Natasha says, holds her empty glass up pointedly when Clint walks past.

Kate’s gone to spend some time with America - they agreed it was for the best because Kate’s _this_ close to killing him, he’s pretty sure - so they’re alone in the apartment. Hanging out and playing Mortal Kombat seemed like a good way to spend the night.

Clint takes the offered glass and fills it up with the rest of wine, replacing his own with water.

“You know what I mean,” he says once he’s back on the couch. “Why do you always play as the Xenomorph?”

“I could ask you the same about Mileena,” Natasha replies. “And no, we’re not doing any touring. I have a proposal to give you. I have to get the paperwork first, though. I think it’ll benefit both of us.”

“This label change thing you’ve been talking about?”

“Mm,” Natasha says. “New label, new manager, new marketing strategy.”

“Fun,” Clint answers as the little woman on the screen rips off the alien’s head and begins devouring it. It announces his victory a second later and Natasha huffs, clearly unimpressed with the outcome. Clint doesn’t know what she expected - she’s terrible at video games and he spends way too much time playing them.

They set up another round and it goes much the same way, Clint’s scantily-clad character shredding Natasha’s creature with ease. The speakers erupt with shrieks and then fall into silence, and Clint chews at his lip before glancing sideways at her.

Natasha’s watching the screen, not him, looking like she’s completely focused on finding a winning strategy to beat him at this simple fighting game. It’s far too purposeful to be an accident. She’s keeping him distracted, and he’s got no doubt that she knows what his mental state’s been like for these last weeks.

Whether it’s because Kate told her or if it’s because she _knows_ him, it’s true.

“I had an idea for a new song,” he says instead of queuing up another round.

It’s an offering.

Natasha throws the controller down and slumps sideways so they’re touching, shoulder pressing into his side and her hair brushing his neck. She sighs and he inhales, smells her perfume and something lemony, and a little piece of his world clicks back into place. It feels like peace, almost, sitting in this darkened room with his best friend leaning into him like he’s the most important thing in the world to her.

“I’m sorry about Bucky,” she says a while later.

“Yeah,” Clint says. “I’m sorry about Bucky too.”

Natasha reaches around and her fingers link with his, delicate and steel-laced. She squeezes once, twice, and then relents.

Clint squeezes back. “You okay to stay the night?”

“My apartment was rented out to a single mother with three kids and they can’t move out until next week. I thought you’d never ask,” Natasha replies.

“I can’t believe you actually made me go for a run,” Clint says, throws his sweaty shirt onto the counter.

Natasha picks it up while touching it as little as possible and then flicks it into the corner instead. Clint snorts, because for a second he’d thought she was actually going to put it in the laundry basket that neither of them use. Kate’s the only one that ever uses it - it’s easier to leave it in a pile on the floor just in case he runs out of fresh clothes at the wrong time and needs to recycle some.

“The fresh air is good for you,” she replies. “As are showers. You stink.”

“I’ll take one later,” he says dismissively, waving a hand at her as he fishes the biggest mug out of the sink.

“ _Months_ later,” Natasha says but she pushes her way into the bathroom anyway, leaving him alone.

Clint rinses out the mug and goes through the motions of making his mid-afternoon coffee. After a few seconds he adds a mug for Natasha even though she probably won’t drink it. It’s a black mug with a silver finish around the rim and Clint looks at it for a few long seconds because it reminds him of people.

Nah. It reminds him of one person, and it takes Clint a few seconds to realize he’s tapping out the melody from that video Kate had showed him.

He stops.

Once he’s poured the coffee though, there’s still an off-key tapping noise. It’s sporadic enough that it isn’t music, but it’s _annoying_. What the fuck is it?

He’s started dismantling the sink by the time Natasha appears in the kitchen to investigate. Clint glances up from the water pipes and sees her frown, guesses that maybe that isn’t what the problem is. He stands up and dries his hands with a dishcloth, tries to ignore her raised eyebrow.

The tapping continues.

There’s a particularly large one - more of a _thunk_ than a tap - and Clint turns around in a slow circle, trying to figure out what could be making it. His aids make the whole hearing sounds thing easier, but he’s hopeless at actually figuring out where noises come _from_.

Natasha sighs.

He frowns.

“Look,” Natasha says, taking pity on him and pointing at his window.

As Clint looks, a rock pings off of the glass. “What the fuck? Is that one of your crazy fans?”

“Not mine,” Natasha replies. What does _that_ mean? He opens his mouth to ask, but Natasha’s already hiked up her towel over her chest and started up the stairs to his bedroom. It’s a clear indication that Clint should be taking care of the vandal or whatever on his own, so he sighs and heads for the window without bothering to find a fresh shirt first.

As he steps out onto the fire escape, a pebble smacks him in the forehead. “Ow. The _fuck._ ”

When he looks down at the street though, it isn’t a kid with sociopathic tendencies like he’d first assumed. It’s Bucky, hood pulled over his head and wearing that dumb black and purple scarf Clint had gotten him for his birthday as a joke.

His eyes have gone wide and shocked like he hadn’t expected Clint to actually _be_ there - that, or he’s horrified that he’s hit Clint in the face with a rock. Clint hopes there’s at least _some_ regret there over the latter and that it hadn’t been Bucky’s plan in the first place.

Bucky’s still staring and Clint realizes he’s going to have to speak first if anything is going to happen here. “Next shot’s gonna cost you a few bucks, I normally only let people hit me after a bad show.”

“You’ve never had a bad show in your life,” Bucky says eventually. It takes him a few minutes to get it out, and Clint’s got to cross his arms over his chest just to try and conserve some warmth from the wind - he also does it because he doesn’t exactly want Bucky to feel _welcome_ right now.

“What do you want, Buck?”

“Your phone doesn’t work and I don’t know if it’s because you’ve blocked my number or not,” is the reply he gets. “I wasn’t gonna come up to your door and trap you either, but I wanted- I needed to talk to you in person.”

Right. “You think I should listen to anything you have to say?”

Bucky’s face falls and Clint feels a pang in his chest, sharp and painful. He has to remind himself that this is Bucky’s fault, and that he’s not being horrible by refraining from the urge to jump down and wrap himself around Bucky like a shawl. It’s not happening. Clint has _very_ little self-respect but he’s got enough to know that’d be a bad idea.

“I know you don’t owe me anything,” Bucky says. “I’m not gonna _ask_ you for anything.”

Clint scratches at a stray feather inked on the inside of his elbow, purposefully doesn’t touch the red star just to the left of it. “What _do_ you want, then?”

Bucky looks up at him, face creased with stress.

Clint waits.

“I’m- it doesn’t matter,” Bucky says, looking away. “I’m stupid, to think that I could just- I’ll leave you alone. I’m sorry I hurt you, I should never have- I’m sorry about all of it.”

“Doesn’t really fix anything, does it?”

It’s cold. Clint regrets it once it’s past his lips, just a little. Bucky sags with a defeated look and then straightens up a split second later. There’s an expression on his face that says maybe he’s _trying_ to keep it neutral, but it’s not working. Clint’s hurt him.

“Okay,” Bucky says. He hitches his jacket a little closer around his chest and turns away from Clint, heading up the alleyway he’s standing in to the main street. Clint notices Steve a second later, leaning up against a sleek black car waiting for him. They’re not _legally_ allowed to park there, but who’s going to stop the damn Winter Soldier?

Bucky doesn’t stop. He’s not going to, Clint realizes. He’s just going to walk away after apologizing and that’s what he _should_ do, but it doesn’t stop the sharp, instinctive panic that surges through Clint. He’s halfway through the motions of reaching out to Bucky before he sees Steve again and falters, although it doesn’t stop him from running his stupid mouth.

“That’s it?”

Bucky turns around. “You want me to do something else?”

“Kinda want you to make as much of a fool of yourself that you made of me,” Clint mutters, then raises his voice. “No, Barnes. Get out of here.”

Then he turns around and begins the ordeal of trying to climb back through a window that isn’t made for any human to be climbing through, let alone one that’s far above average height. Natasha’s sitting on a stool watching him when he looks over at the kitchen and she cocks an eyebrow curiously, but doesn’t say anything.

Instead she passes over his giant mug of steaming coffee. He loves her.

He lies awake in bed for a long time, long enough that Natasha rolls over and regards him with dark eyes. Clint tries not to think about how much he wishes it was Bucky in bed with him instead. She can read it on his face though, and she sighs at him and reaches over to pat at his cheek.

“Stop thinking,” she says. “You’re good at that. Come on.”

“I did the right thing, right,” Clint answers reluctantly. “Self-respect?”

“You shouldn’t ask me. I make bad decisions,” Natasha replies quietly.

“You do just fine,” Clint tries to reassure her, covering the hand on his face with his own. “Be honest. What do you think about all this shit, with Bucky?”

“I think it’s your choice to make,” she says. Unhelpful. Clint frowns at her and she sighs again, rolls onto her back to look up at the cracks in the ceiling. It takes her a few minutes to continue, and she looks a little reluctant when she speaks again. “He made you the happiest I’ve seen you in a long time. Succeeded where I failed.”

“Aw, Nat,” he says, heart squeezing in his chest. “You’re always gonna be my favourite. Ride or die. You know that, right?”

“Shut up,” Natasha replies, but the light’s returned to her eyes when she gives him a sideways glance. “He still hurt you.”

“Yeah,” Clint says, heavily. “Would you forgive him?”

“No,” Natasha says flatly.

Clint’s heart lurches inside his ribs. He doesn’t know what kind of a face he makes but it earns him a fond eyeroll for his efforts, even as he tries to school his face back into something neutral. She’s probably right. He’s setting himself up for failure if he chases after Bucky now. It’d be pathetic.

“I wouldn’t forgive him, _but_ ,” Natasha continues pointedly. “That’s because _I’m_ not in love with him.”

Clint blinks at her. “I really don’t know what advice you’re giving me here, Nat.”

“That’s because I’m not giving you any,” she says, and rolls over so her back is facing him.

Great.

That solves everything.


	2. Chapter 2

“Are you done moping?”

“Jury’s still out on that one,” Clint says when Kate wanders past to check the fridge. Natasha’s obviously texted her to say it’s safe to come back. He does feel a little bad for dragging her through his depressive slump. She didn’t deserve his attitude, but he can’t do anything about that now except bribe her into being his friend again.

“I’ll take it,” Kate replies with an absent shrug, and then her eyes light up when she sees the box on the counter. “You got the fancy shit?”

“Hazelnut sauce is behind the cereal,” Clint adds. It’s an apology and a thank you rolled into one, and Kate accepts it with as much grace as she can muster. Which is to say, she immediately begins making the expensive coffee and grabs the big mug off of the sink.

“They’re setting up for some kind of an event outside,” she says conversationally, once she’s dropped into the armchair opposite him. “Part of the street’s fenced off and all.”

“Are they stopping people from getting around?” Natasha sounds unimpressed. Clint can’t blame her; he doesn’t want to try and go around to the back of the building to get out. Last time he’d gone that way, Ivan and his thugs had been waiting. They probably aren’t dumb enough to fuck with Natasha, but why take the risk?

“Nah,” Kate says. “I spoke to one of the guys doing the barriers. Residents can come and go, it’s mostly to stop crowds.”

“Why would there be crowds in a random street in the bad part of Bed-Stuy?”

“Is there a _good_ part of Bed-Stuy?”

“The gentrified part? No, that’s not good, their bread is fifteen bucks. Point taken, I’ll shut up.”

Natasha’s standing by the window at the far end of the apartment, curtain peeled back a sliver so she can observe whatever’s happening in the street. Clint stays where he is - event or not, he doesn’t really care. Despite what he’s said to Kate, he has a bucket (yes, a bucket) of icecream in the freezer, and he’s going to eat the entire thing while watching tragic gay movies and feeling sorry for himself.

“Hmm,” is all Natasha says when she lets the curtain fall back. “Interesting.”

“Is it?”

“Perhaps,” Natasha returns. “I need you to do a job for me.”

Clint regards her suspiciously. “What kind of job? If it’s evicting a child from your apartment, I’m not doing it - the last time I tried, I got hit with a chair.”

“That was pretty funny,” Kate says absently. She’s too busy staring at the coffeemaker to see the betrayed look Clint sends her.

“I want you to get more apple juice from the store,” Natasha says.

Clint frowns. “Don’t we have some in the-”

“Go.”

“Why do all the women in my life bully me,” he laments to Lucky, who just tips his head to the side and lets his tongue loll out. Clint sorta wishes he was a dog too right now. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have that luxury so he just fetches Lucky’s lead and whistles for him to come along, figuring they can make a detour to the park on their travels.

“You a resident?”

Clint eyes off the guy that’s standing in his way, shifting his grip on the apple juice so he doesn’t drop it. The guy eyes him back, a copy of the kind of no-nonsense stare that Natasha gives him sometimes. Clint has a vague recollection of seeing this guy somewhere before - those kind of arm muscles are hard to forget - but he’s not sure where.

Lucky decides he isn’t a problem either way and winds himself around the guy’s legs, woofing when he gets a distracted pat on the head.

“Yeah,” Clint answers, tugging the hood off his head so he can scratch his hair. “Do I need ID or some shit now? I don’t even know what’s going on, we didn’t even get any warning this shit was happening.”

The guy looks up from Lucky and there’s a flicker of recognition in his eyes. His lips don’t move but Clint’s got the distinct impression he’s being smirked at. “You? Nah. Feel like I owe you an apology, though.”

Clint blinks. “For… asking if I’m a resident?”

“No,” the guy says cryptically. “Go on, Hawkeye.”

“I- do we know each other?”

“Nope,” is the reply he gets before the guy wanders down to the other end of the barricade to speak to old Mrs White from the complex across the road. The sunlight catches off of the black ink peeking out from his sleeve, a hint of red amongst the brown of his skin, and Clint tips his head to the side and realizes they’re feathers.

Huh. Kind of like his.

Weird. Most of his life is weird, though. Clint shrugs one shoulder and tries to tug Lucky back to their apartment block, keeping close to the sidewalk so he doesn’t alert the people in black suits wandering around. They don’t actually seem to be doing anything - the fences are up and there’s security, but Clint can’t see anything that tells him what kind of an event this is. There’s not even any tents.

“...this is _not_ what we’re normally hired to do,” he catches a man saying. “You know how much fencing off part of a street people live in is going to cost?”

“Rhodey,” Steve says. “Tony said he was on-board with it. It’s just to keep the crowds at a distance. Trust me, this way is better for everyone.”

Clint knows what Steve Rogers sounds like, even if they’ve only had one conversation. He peeks around the side of the tent and sure enough there Steve is, in a white shirt that’s too small to actually be his size and a pair of sunglasses. He’s got his arms crossed like he means business and Clint’s got no idea who this _Rhodey_ guy is or who Tony might be, but he doesn’t like it.

He scoops Lucky off of the ground with a grunt, juggling the apple juice with two fingers. He's realizing now that this is Natasha's roundabout way of warning him that something's going on. Lucky tries to lick in his mouth and Clint shushes him, looping the leash closer. It’ll be quieter but fucking _hell_ , what’s Kate been feeding this mutt?

Clint waits until their backs are turned and then runs for the front door to his complex, none the wiser about what’s going on but disliking it nonetheless.

Lucky enjoys the ride, at least.

“So?” Kate says when he nearly overbalances and drops the dog on the floor on his way in.

Lucky isn’t particularly upset about it and tries to lick his face again instead. Clint appreciates the attention, but he puts Lucky down anyway. He skitters off to beg for scraps at Natasha’s feet and Clint makes his way to the couch before he sinks down into it.

“Clint,” Kate says.

“What?”

“Did you see anything when you went outside?”

“There was a guy with wing tattoos on his arms like mine,” Clint supplies. “His had colour, though. And they looked pretty professional.” Clint’s own wings, long winding curls of black ink over his arms, were done by a drunk woman during a keg party. They’re surprisingly good-looking even with their admittedly rocky origin, but they’re not professional. He’s gotten worse.

“Sam,” Natasha says with a knowing nod, and Clint squints at her.

“That’s not what I was talking about,” Kate says impatiently. “Come on.”

“Come on _what_ ,” Clint answers, a little irritated. He’s got a bad feeling about all of this and it’s not getting any better as time passes. “What did you _do_ , Katie-Kate?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Kate says. “I had nothing to do with this. I’m guessing this is because _you_ did something.”

It’s always his fault. Clint sighs and turns his attention back to Natasha, who’s pretending she’s preoccupied with feeding the dog pieces of bacon. She doesn’t crack under the weight of his stare - he was stupid to think she would - but she takes pity on him after a few minutes and sits up. To anyone else she’d be smirking and yet Clint can see a tiny flicker of anxiety in her eyes.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” is all she says, though.

“Find out _what_ ,” he says.

Like it’s answering his question, there’s a sharp whine of feedback from somewhere outside, loud enough that it’d make him wince if he didn’t deal with that everyday. It’s still _weird_. What’s even weirder is Carol Danvers’ voice a second later, her smooth routine of _testing, testing_ through speakers.

“Oh no,” Clint says.

“ _It’s working?_ ” says a distressingly familiar voice from outside.

“Oh no,” Clint repeats.

“ _I want to apologize in advance to everyone who lives here,_ ” Bucky says. “ _I know I already came around and paid for hotels for folks who didn’t want to listen to me, but I’m still sorry about all this. I haven't slept in a month and it’s the best I can come up with."_

“Oh no,” Clint says again.

“Oh yes,” Kate says.

The guitar starts up a second later.

“ - _saw you_ \- - _singing_ ,” Aimee says to him.

Clint reaches up to point at his ears - minus the hearing aids - and turns over a patty. He likes his meat burned to a crisp, much to Natasha’s disgust. He’d normally leave a few of them rare on the roof grilling nights. Not tonight though; there’s only five people up here and he’s in a mood. It’s up for debate what the mood _is_ but it’s a mood nonetheless.

It’s got nothing to do with the vibrations underneath his bare feet.

Aimee blinks at him and then signs very slowly. _It’s very R-O-M-A-N-T-I-E. You should listen._

“Was that meant to be a C?”

He might not be able to read lips that great, but he can identify an eyeroll well enough. Clint gives her a burger and ignores whatever she says next. It’s probably not polite anyway. He finishes the rest of the meat and stacks it onto his own plate, making his way over to the lawn chairs they’ve got set up.

“ ,” Natasha says to Kate.

Kate looks at Clint and frowns.

Clint eats his burger.

_Childish,_ Kate signs at him. He regrets teaching her.

_At least look at what’s going on,_ Natasha signs when he looks over at her. _That way you can plan an exit route._

“Will they stop nagging me if I do?”

Natasha raises one eyebrow, looking unimpressed. _I’m not the one in love with him_ , she’d said, and Clint can’t help but feel like even if she says she's not having anything to do with the matter, something about this has changed her mind. Her whole impartial schtick doesn’t seem to be sticking - it could be because she feels guilty about what happened, though.

Clint sighs and puts his food down again. It’s a lost cause anyway.

He gets to his feet and wanders over to the edge of the roof, glances down. It’s not like he can hear the music with his hearing aids in the kitchen downstairs, but he can see just fine.

There’s not a big production like he’d half-expected there to be. It looks like most of the people are in charge of keeping the swarms of teenage girls pushing at the fences back. He spots Steve leaning up against the alleyway wall and takes a few steps to look down that side.

The alleyway facing his fire escape contains just one person and a sizeable amp.

Bucky’s got his eyes closed, lashes dark crescents against the pale colour of his skin. He’s cradling a battered old black guitar like it’s something precious, mouth pressed close and personal to the microphone.

Clint watches his lips shape words that make no sense without the noise. Bucky’s not wearing the leather this time, just normal civilian clothes, and there’s something raw about him playing like this without the theatrics. Clint’s pretty sure that hoodie was the one he wore when they first met, actually - and it’s telling that he remembers that, isn’t it?

The song must finish because Bucky stops strumming, blinks his eyes open hazily like he’s not entirely sure where he is. Like he’d been so caught up in the music that the setting hadn’t mattered. (Caught up in theoretically singing to... _him_?)

He glances up.

Clint ducks back so he isn't seen.

He’s expecting Bucky to play one set and give up, but the singing continues for another few hours.

And a few more after that.

“ _Baby, nobody would love you like I do, I guess that’s half-true-_ ”

“Are you in a fucking romcom now? Is _that_ what this is?” At least that’s what he thinks Kate is saying to him. It’s hard to tell over the noise outside - it all blends together and Clint can’t focus on the words properly.

Clint grunts.

“ _Would you bury me next to Johnny Cash?_ _I'm obsessed, do you love me like that?_ ”

“And who the hell taught you how to play hard to get?”

“I’m not playing hard to get,” Clint mutters.

“Then why haven’t you fallen into his arms dramatically yet? It’s _Bucky_. He’s the only person who owns more than one Hawkeye shirt. He’s blocked off a whole street just to sing at you, because he wants to dramatically win you back. You _love_ this shit when it’s in a movie, Clint.”

“This isn’t a movie,” Clint says, turns the television on.

“ _N_ _o one ever thinks of you_ _a_ _s much as I do, not, not even you_ _,_ ” Bucky’s voice floats up to him, and he turns the volume up a little more.

Unfortunately it’s a news channel and they’re showing pictures of his street, glimpses of Bucky talking with Steve. Steve’s in the middle of saying something, a faint smile on his lips. Bucky’s got his arms crossed and he’s curled in on himself the way he always gets around crowds, looking at his shoes.

“ _Sources say Natasha Romanov of Hawkeye and the Black Widow was spotted within the building Barnes is singing to,_ ” the reporter says. “ _We have a witness who claims to have seen Barnes with the member of HBW a few months ago after a concert. What did you see?_ ”

The screen splits to a young girl that looks vaguely familiar to Clint, although he can’t figure out where he’s seen her before. She’s picking at a stud on her sleeve and there’s a few long beats of silence before someone off-screen coughs pointedly and she jumps. There’s a wide-eyed stare of panic directed left of the camera, and then she glances back.

“ _The Winter Soldier,_ ” the reporter prompts. “ _You saw him?_ ”

“ _Oh, uh- yeah. I saw him on tour a while back because my dad owns the hotel that some of the A-list bands were staying at. He was soaking wet, got the carpet damp and all. Took days to fix them up._ ”

_Oh_. That was the first night they’d kissed, out there with the sand in his toes and the waves lapping at his skin. Clint feels himself smiling at the memory.

“ _And he was having sexual relations with Natasha Romanov, the superstar known as Black Widow?_ ”

Clint grimaces.

The girl’s face creases into a frown. “ _What? No, he was with Clint Barton. Hawkeye. They didn’t fuck in front of me but they were getting pretty damn close - that’s sexual relations, right? I told you guys that the Winter Soldier was with the lyricist, Widow doesn’t write the songs. Aren’t you supposed to know about this stuff, since you hunted me down for the scoop and all?_ ”

Kate lets out a sharp bark of laughter from behind him and the girl’s side of the screen disappears a split second after that, replaced with the slightly embarrassed-looking reporter. Clint glances over at Natasha and she’s smirking as well.

There’s a longer pause of silence now and Kate’s nearly in hysterics as a man comes running over with a stack of paper to slam on the reporter’s desk, which she reads over carefully before speaking.

“ _Breaking news,_ ” the reporter says. “ _I’ve received information that James Barnes, the Winter Soldier, is gay._ ”

“They have to be doing this on purpose!” Kate exclaims, pointing a finger at the television. “It’s like they’re avoiding any news about you _intentionally_ , what the fuck, she just said your name.”

Clint turns the TV off.

It’s _funny_ , really, but he doesn’t want to encourage Kate any more than he already has.

The problem with that decision is that now he can hear Bucky singing again. They’re all love songs as far as he can tell, although the genres swing wildly from hardcore to pop and then back to cheesy emo songs. Half of them are songs that Clint’s admitted to falling in love with but that Natasha won’t cover, and the reminder that Bucky remembers these things makes him sigh.

“We’re going out for dinner,” Natasha announces.  
  
Clint unsticks himself from the floor.

“Not you.”

Clint flops back onto the floorboards. There’s twin sighs of disappointment from somewhere to the left of him and he ignores them. He’s found the biggest hoodie he owns in the laundry and now he’s enveloped in it and that’s where he’s staying.

Heels click a little closer and then he’s treated to an upside-down view of Kate. “It’s raining out there, Clint.”

“Is it?”

“Yes,” she says. “At least go out there and tell him you’re still sulking. That way he can come back when you’re ready to fall dramatically into his arms.”

“Who said I was going to do that?”

“Denial is a river in Egypt, not your hometown. Please stop torturing him,” Kate says. “Please stop torturing _us_. We all know you’re going to take him back, he’s perfect for you. God knows why he thinks you’re perfect for him, you idiot. Stop playing hard to get.”

“Hey,” Clint says, but Kate’s already leaving.

He lets his head fall back to the floor.

Clint wants to pretend he’s been tuning the music out all this time, but the volume’s sunken down to something reasonable and it lingers at the back of his mind. Every time there’s a song that he knows his fingers start itching. He tries not to think too hard about Bucky’s voice.

He doesn’t do a great job.

There’s a strikingly familiar melody a second later and Clint sits up like he’s been electrocuted. It takes him a few minutes to register the actual _words_ Bucky’s singing, and then Clint’s sticking his head out the window before he’s even thought it through.

“Hey! You can’t sing my own songs at me, that’s cheating!”

“Oh,” Bucky says, stopping abruptly to stare at him. “You’re- you’re here.”

“I _live_ here!” Clint yells as the rain gets heavier. “What the hell are you doing, Buck?”

The startled look on Bucky’s face resolves into something more determined when he hears the question. “I’m making a fool of myself,” he says, tipping his chin up like it’s a challenge. “Like you wanted.”

_That’s_ what this is? He’s just embarrassing himself for Clint’s benefit? Like the acoustic concert wasn’t bad enough for his career so he’s going to make it even worse, just for _Clint_?

(Honestly, it’s more like something Clint himself would try to pull off.)

The crowds have disappeared with the rain, and Clint can see Steve holding up an umbrella for the security guy with the wing tattoos. There’s no one around Bucky. He’s just standing there in the rain with a guitar and a microphone (and how has he not electrocuted himself yet? Must be StarkTech.) The rain's been going for a while and it's not just a gentle sprinkle, and it's cold out here. It's cold and Bucky hasn't even moved into shelter, he's just standing there in the middle of the alley.

Clint realizes in that moment that Bucky Barnes is a fucking _dork_. The amusement bubbles up in his chest and then spills out before he can control it, and then he’s laughing helplessly, one hand braced on the railing. What the fuck are they _doing?_ Bucky hates performing and Clint hates being alone, and look at what they're doing.

There’s silence from down below, and when Clint looks Bucky’s just standing there watching him.

He’s kind of stupidly beautiful. Kind of stupid, too.

Clint misses him _so much_.

“I’m still mad at you for lying to me. You said you were just a fan,” Clint says. His voice is small, but Bucky must hear him anyway because he looks down at his boots, a frown catching on his lips.

“That’s fair,” comes the reply a few seconds later.

“You’re done with stealing my songs to try and win me back? Seriously, Barnes. The drama.”

Bucky winces and Clint stamps down hard on the urge to smile. It’s slips past anyway, because it’s Bucky and this is the dumbest thing he’s ever done, and it’s all for him.

“Musician, right? Gotta make a dramatic gesture once in a while, I guess,” is what Bucky finally replies with. “Comes with the territory. And I’m not so good at using my talking words, so… songs.”

Yeah, that makes sense.

Clint sighs and makes his way down the fire escape.

Bucky looks a little nervous when Clint’s bare feet hit the concrete of the alleyway. He doesn’t take a step back or anything, but he looks like he’s thinking about it. Like he thinks Clint’s going to start yelling at him, or throw a punch.

Clint curls his fingers in the sleeves of his hoodie.

“Hi,” Bucky says.

Bucky’s _soaked_. His hair’s plastered to his neck and face and some of the water rolling down his collarbones is tinted pink from the dyed tips he’d gotten recently. (It’s meant to be red, Clint’s pretty sure, but Bucky had used a shitty grocery store dye for it and that’s what he gets.) Clint can feel the water soaking through his own shirt and suddenly he’s reminded of the first time again, standing out in the dark ocean with Bucky looking back at him.

“You’re gonna get hypothermia,” Clint says.

“Worth it,” Bucky replies, lifting one shoulder in a shrug.

“ _Worth it?_ You’re gonna _die_ if you keep singing songs in the rain, Buck. Why would that be worth it?”

“Because if there’s even the tiniest chance you’ll let me back in your life, I’ve at least gotta try,” Bucky says. “Because _you’re_ worth it.”

Clint kisses him.

He doesn’t _mean_ to, it’s just Bucky’s words and Bucky’s fingers on the guitar and Bucky’s dumb face makes all the feelings surge up in him like a wave. He’s absently glad that the guitar has a secure strap because Bucky drops it after a shocked pause and instantly starts touching Clint’s face with gentle fingers, drawing him in closer.

Making out in wet clothes. They’re just going around in circles, aren’t they?

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says against his mouth. “I should’ve said something- I was scared and I didn’t want it to be like you and Natasha, I’m sorry.”

Clint just kisses him harder, because he can’t come up with a coherent reply right now. He’s just a jumble of feelings and he’s making out with the Winter Soldier in an alleyway in the rain with pajama pants on. He’s a mess. _Bucky’s_ a mess, for thinking this was a good idea.

They have to breathe sometime, unfortunately, although Clint doesn’t stray too far. Bucky's skin is hot where he's touching it - too hot, maybe, and Clint's worried that he _isn't_ the disaster in this relationship.

“If I forgive you will you come inside, so you don’t lose the _other_ arm?”

“I love you so much,” Bucky bursts out at the same time, like he’s going to explode if he doesn’t say it right here and right now.

Did he hear that right? Maybe his hearing aids are malfunctioning again. Clint’s so shocked he can’t do much more than blink, still in his ratty pajama pants and the Incredible Hulk hoodie. Bucky seems to realize what he’s done a second later and swears viciously, presses his hands into his face as it goes red.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, muffled by his hands. “I wasn’t going to put anything on you and then I- _shit_.”

“No,” Clint says, although it feels like he’s died a little bit. “It’s, uh. It’s okay. I mean. Me too.”

Bucky lifts his head up. He looks blindsided. “Even with the whole Winter Soldier thing?”

“Buck,” Clint says. “You could be a mail-order stripper for all I care. You could be selling my underwear online as a job and I wouldn’t _care_ as long as you were honest with me. I don’t care about the Winter Soldier, I’m in love with Bucky Barnes.”

“Oh,” Bucky says.

“I’m gonna be real with you, the lying freaks me out a lot,” Clint says. “And it made me think maybe I cared a lot more about you than you cared about me, but I’m reassessing that now. You wanna go upstairs so our friends aren’t watching us?”

Bucky doesn’t even glance at where the group of people are standing, he just swings the guitar around so it’s sitting against his back and then kisses Clint again. Clint doesn’t know where the hell his ‘hates crowds’ attitude has gone - he thinks it’s still there because Bucky’s still tense. He’s proving a point, though, and Clint’s melting a little on the inside.

Maybe Bucky’s right. Maybe it _is_ worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Bucky's singing is, of course, a cheesy emo song. I deliberated over this for a while and ended up with [Bob Dylan by Fall Out Boy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVJExMd5pRU) because it reminds me of Bucky, especially the video. He does not give a single shit about his career or music, just Clint. I daresay we'll be checking in on this series at least one more time before it's over.

**Author's Note:**

> Winterhawk Bingo Square: Free Square


End file.
